Considering that Anna Katherine Green is regarded as a seminal figure in the mystery novel and called "The mother of the Mystery novel", I was expecting an interesting read. She was, after all, a best seller in her day and her female sleuth, Amelia Butterworth is regarded as a progenitor of later characters such as Miss Marple {and perhaps Amelia Peabody?}.

So I was very disappointed with Dr Izard. It certainly isn't a detective novel and perhaps this is the why it seems such a poor effort. What we have here is a clumsily plotted Victorian pulp melodrama with cardboard characters. The hero is completely one-dimensional and the Doctor is a wimpish pallid Byronic creation. One would expect a female novelist to create a reasonably believable heroine, but Polly is just a clinging-vine stereotype. Only the villain has anything close to an interesting personality--but the fact that he actually succeeds for so long is just simply not credible.

The cast of characters is so lifeless because Green spends a great deal of time talking about them rather than dramatising them--i.e. she tells rather than shows. Frequently she decides to use the characters to develop ethical points and we find ourselves on the receiving end of paragraphs of Victorian moralising.

Personally, because of her reputation as a seminal writer in the field of detective fiction, I would like to try another novel by Anna Katherine Green and I hope that her more well-known novels are more enjoyable.

I enjoy turn-of-the-twentieth century fiction, and I don't mean the great literature of the period. I like learning indirectly about manners and morals as well as the daily routine of the time within a nice story; I also like what it tells me about the people who read it for enjoyment. Unfortunately, this book was an exception. It was dreadful. I won't rehash fantasyfan's cogent points, but I can't resist mentioning the essential preposterousness of it, from the very beginning, where the anonymous conduit of funds to Polly just happened to be in the same hospital ward, in Chicago! half a continent away, as the one person who could pull off an impersonation. And just how did Izard locate his conduit, anyway?

Dr. Izard did recall to me, perversely, the book club selection of last December, Ethan Frome. Similar in setting, time period and even to an extent in theme, about love devastated in violence--except that Wharton, in her economy of language and deft handling of those themes, wrote a great novel.

There is a sense of fake melodrama in this book, which I cannot imagine being part of my day-to-day life. It will have been for the readers in the age that the book was published.
As I couldn't get a feel for the context, it wasn't an enjoyable read for me. I remember having voted for it and I don't regret reading this book, but it's not for me: too many unexplicable happenings, sighs, looks, gloomy gothic atmosphere......
As I said before 'I feel myself educated'.

That is one of the finest reviews of a book I've read in my entire life. It's right up there with the classic, "This book fills a much-needed gap." That blurb pretty much tells you in one sentence everything you need to know about the book.

It kept me interested somewhat. Then at the end I was eagerly anticipating how it would resolve the two characters. But for one, the resolution was basically, "Oh, he's just some guy."

That guy just
- happened to be close to the family,
- happened to look just like the father,
- happened to fit in his clothing,
- happened to know a secret hiding place in a desk,
- happened to be in Chicago where the Dr. had taken such pains to make such a probability infinitesimal,
- happened to be in the very room with Dr. Izard's target,
- happened to have an affliction that would make him appear all done in, such that he could be stationed next to the person yet not be regarded as a threat to the scheme,
- happened to be one who could recover from his affliction, and
- happened to be a crook.
My probabilistic sensibilities are overwhelmed.

Having spent eight days without power during Hurricane Sandy, I'm surprised at the bedtimes being 11 or 12pm. Candlelight and cold make one want to live by the sun.